Position African World Review, 1, William Ude Street, Awoyaya, Lagos, Lagos (2025)

26/08/2025

The Ever-Growing Influence of African Art

The influence of African art on the world can be traced back to the early 20th century when European artists, searching for new forms of representation, encountered traditional African sculptures and masks. The raw power, abstraction, and formal ingenuity of these works profoundly affected modernist pioneers like Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse.

While early African artists like Enwonwu began carving a path into global consciousness, contemporary African artists have shattered the remaining glass ceilings. Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui stands at the helm of this transformation. His monumental works - massive, shimmering tapestries crafted from recycled aluminum bottle caps - have not only captivated audiences but also secured prime placements in institutions like the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Venice Biennale.

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24/08/2025

All over our world today, caricature easily devolves into superficial jest, and satire risks slipping into shrill provocation. Fortunately, the work of Josy Ajiboye, Nigeria’s most eminent cartoonist and painter, has stood as a masterclass in the art of serious humour for several decades predating this season. For over four decades, Ajiboye’s pen and brush have chronicled a nation’s struggles and joys with the rarest blendof wit, empathy, and artistic discipline.
Ajiboye, now in his eighties, came to national prominence in the mid-1970s through his iconic Sunday Times cartoon column, which bore his name simply: Josy Ajiboye. Each week, readers across Nigeria turned the pages to find his latest commentary rendered in ink - sharp-eyed observations of everyday life, politics, corruption, and social contradiction, often conveyed in a single panel, but never with a single
meaning.

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23/08/2025

The international market for African art and antiques is currently navigating a complex landscape shaped on the one hand by economic vagaries, and heightened legal and ethical scrutiny, on the other. But rare and highly sought-after art has an inbuilt resilience that defies a waning economy at any time.
First because those who collect are not your everyday type of buyers. Crafts are far dicerent and replete in tourist shops, several levels below highly rated, pricy antiques. The market for antiques seems restricted to financially assured collectors, premium purchasers with cultivated tastes. In recent years, a significant decline in auction sales of African art in general is reported. In 2024 alone, total fine art sales at auction on the continent being just under $17 million, marking the lowest figure in a
decade. This downturn reflects broader global economic contractions, with the fine art auction market experiencing a 27% decline just for 2024.

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22/08/2025

Tiken Jah Fakoly’s introduction to music was serendipitous. As a child, he was sent to Gbeleban, a villagedevoid of modern amenities, to instil discipline through rigorous farm work. It was here, amidst the rustic landscapes, that he first encountered the soulful strains of reggae legends like Bob Marley and Burning Spear, emanating from battery-operated radios during weekend gatherings. These melodies, rich with messages of resistance and hope, resonated deeply with the young Fakoly, igniting a passion that would completely shape a destiny. Born Doumbia Moussa Fakoly in 1968 in Odienné, Côte d’Ivoire, he has emerged a formidable voice in reggae, intertwining the genre’s rhythms with the rich polyphonic heritage of West African sounds.

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21/08/2025

Reconstructed Identities:
Evans Mbugua’s Ubuntu Inspired Paris Debut
When Kenyan-born artist Evans Mbugua unveiled Reconstructed Identities at Paris’s La La Lande Gallery this spring, he invited viewers into an intimate exploration of selfhood - one that transcends borders and is nurtured by the age-old African philosophy of Ubuntu. Running from March 28 to May 10, 2025, this solo exhibition marks a pivotal moment in Mbugua’s career, showcasing a body of work that is as
technically dazzling as it is conceptually profound .Journey from Nairobi to ParisBorn in Nairobi in 1989, Mbugua spent his formative years in Kenya before emigrating to France at age nineteen. That bicultural upbringing - Anglophone East Africa juxtaposed with francophone Europe - would come to define both his
personal identity and his artistic vision. “Everything that I am comes from lived experiences—what I’ve smelled, tasted, heard or seen, what I’ve read, where I’ve been, who I’ve met,” he explains on his website, underscoring how memory and movement inform his creative process. Over the past decade, Mbugua has quietly built a reputation in Paris’s contemporary art scene, blending portraiture, symbolic fragmentation, and dazzling colour palettes into immersive mixed-media installations.
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11/07/2025

OVER THE RUGGED ROAD OF LAGOS ART DEALERSHIP

ONLY A FEW NAMES COMMAND THE KIND OF RESPECT AND ADMIRATION ACCORDED TO OLASEHINDE ODIMAYO IN THE EXPANSIVE ARTISTIC TERRAIN OF LAGOS. THE ART DEALER TURNED 75 RECENTLY.

Usually, it is the creators of the art who gain all the focus in this line of business. Little attention is paid to the real chaperones who keep the artistic engine running and the business side of things moving. And it seems to serve this denizen of the fine art industry quite well, for he is the self-effacing, and ultimate back stage type of operative, whose person has so far managed to successfully evade the frequently intrusive visual art columns of the Nigerian newspapers. He would rather write on others by himself or contribute to some trending topic in culture and the arts. I would say, one of his ways of further deflecting attention from himself, thereby creating more privacy to conduct his next adroit business move!

With Olasehinde Odimayo, it isn’t always about profit. There is his prominent compassionate side, especially when he is dealing with up and coming artists who need help and reassurance that going full throttle producing the art is the right way to go. He has also served as mentor to would-be gallerists, some of whom started out as his gallery or business assistants who got their training on the go as his understudy.

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22/04/2024

Kole Ade Odutola is a professor at the University of Florida,
Gainesville. He has taught Yoruba since 2006 and is the
author of Diaspora and Imagined Nationality, published by
Carolina Academic Press, USA

21/04/2024

Lookman Sanusi has been working as a creative professional
in Nigeria and the UK spanning over four decades during
which he has published and served as consultant to major
institutions including the Obasanjo Presidential Library, the
BBC and the Nigerian Cultural Day in Berlin, Germany. He also
served as a roving tutor at Regents University in London and
Goldsmith University also in London. He founded Bubbles FM
in 2011 an internet radio with coverage of most of Europe. He
has ongoing business tentacles in Nigeria

20/04/2024

Jumoke Sanwo is a storyteller, cultural producer, and
founder of Revolving Art Incubator Lagos. She uses
lens-based productions, exhibitions, social and spatial
interventions to create new imaginaries and inclusive
frameworks for urban development. Her practice stands
at the intersection of technology, innovation and African Art.
Her work explores the complexities of postcolonial realism
and the disappearance of public and social spaces in Lagos.
She has contributed to several publications, and online
resources including MoMA Post-Notes on Art in a Global
context.

19/04/2024

Toyin Adewale-Gabriel was born in Ibadan. She earned
a Master’s degree in Literature in English from Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and is a leading name among
Africa’s women authors. Her works include: Naked
Testimonies; Die Aromaforscherin, (Explorer of Aroma), Bitter
Chocolate; 25 New Nigerian Poets which she edited; Nigerian
Women Short Stories, also edited and Breaking The Silence,
a co-edited collection of female writing. She is widely
anthologized and has been translated into German, French,
Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish and Finnish. She has also
participated in poetry festivals in Africa, Europe, North and
South America

18/04/2024

Lookman Sanusi has been working as a creative professional
in Nigeria and the UK spanning over four decades during
which he has published and served as consultant to major
institutions including the Obasanjo Presidential Library, the
BBC and the Nigerian Cultural Day in Berlin, Germany. He also
served as a roving tutor at Regents University in London and
Goldsmith University also in London. He founded Bubbles FM
in 2011 an internet radio with coverage of most of Europe. He
has ongoing business tentacles in Nigeria.

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